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control to the line managers. They are the people who take the responsibility for production; they can also manage the labour."

The report points out that in this area pay increases have fallen to within the range 4%-6% and concludes:

•'Throughout West Midlands industry there is a growing belief that the substantial productivity advances made - the shakeout of surplus labour, thu flexibility in work practices and the brekdown of inter-union skills - will not be clawed back."

The unions have failed to come to terms with Tory strategies such as privatisation, which are intended in British Telecom, local authorities and the NHS to permanently weaken bargaining power. And government and employers have chalked up success after success in the fight for redundancies.

They have effectively shifted the ground so that voluntary redundancy and natural wastage agreements are seen as major successes. A fight is likely only against compulsory redundancies or closures, and even there the chances of a stand-off, let alone a fall for the employer, are slim.

Destruction

There is no sign of a slow down in the destruction of the traditional manufacturing industries. Steel is the JUMN MAKKIS most pertect example. But take engineering. It has lost 22% of its workforce since 1979. On one day in January 1,000 jobs were declared lost in the West Midlands car components industry.

Less dramatically, the North West Engineering Employers Association covering Liverpool and Manchester reported 2,640 job losses from September to November 1982, and announced 500 redundancies in the first full week of December. Comparable figures were returned by other local associations such as Bolton, Wigan and Preston.

The reserve army of nearly five million unemployed, swollen by such casualties, also represents a serious decline in trade union membership. A vicious circle of membership loss - financial problems - conservative stance on industrial struggle more membership loss has been set up.

The TUC lost 500,000 members last year. The membership of affiliates stands at 10.5 million, almost two million down on the 1979 peak.

Union membership returns are optimistically inaccurate but the TGWU, for example, despite amalgamations, claims 1.6 million compared with its 2.2 million peak. The GMWU admits losing 1,000 members a week, and even a relatively protected organisation like the JOHN HARRIS

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